Lockdown: Sick day

Not feeling well.

I was moderately productive at work, responding to a few emails, tying up some loose ends, managing some files, and doing the background on my next story. Around noon I started to feel weak, just a total lack of energy. Something inside felt a little unsettled too, so after my 2:00 Zoom meeting, I took the rest of my day off for sick leave and retired immediately to bed.

Following were several hours of that sick-sleep. Falling unconscious in odd positions (face pressed forcefully into the mattress, mouth wide open, one arm dangling off the side of the bed, butt sticking up at an impossible angle), waking suddenly to shift into some other weird position, look at the phone, try to read something on it, then dropping off again with some vague awareness that time is passing but not really knowing how much.

I forced myself up at round 9:00 to hit the grocery store, which was unusually crowded at 10:30 (half an hour before closing on a midweek night!). It was quite stressful.

I went in with a list, knowing nothing was going to look good, the way I was feeling. Mostly stuck to the list although I had “something totally different” on the list and I just didn’t have it in me to really search for something different. I’m falling into kitchen malaise, I think, and need something to get me excited again. The kalimotxos have been great but somehow a cocktail’s not the same thing as some exotic fruit or veggie from somewhere I’ve never been, or some canned thing I’ve never tried.

Keeping up one’s living space is a pain in the neck, something I’m only recently kind of learning to do with regularity, thanks to lots of time at home, and goodness knows my living space has some unpleasant tasks unique to me. But is there any chore more annoying than bringing in the groceries? I hate it so much. It’s disheartening.

When I was living in the dorm, JB and I would hit the Manoa Safeway and spend ambitious amounts money on ambitious numbers of groceries. We’d carry everything down to the kitchen to stash our stuff in our assigned cabinets and our assigned fridges and then we’d go to Grace’s for dinner. Why is cooking the last thing anyone wants to do after bringing home fresh groceries? I think it has something to do with the pain-in-the-neck task of putting everything away.

I put the pantry stuff away and found weird places to keep the next week-and-a-half’s worth of Diet Pepsi, but left the produce on my counter and collapsed in the bed, not getting back up until after 4:30 in the morning. What am I doing to myself?

I put the produce away — even chopping the watercress into stir-fryable sizes and putting it in a zippered plastic bag.

I had breakfast kind of late, like not until 11:30 or so. I had half a can of corned beef hash in the fridge from before the weekend of decadence, so I fried that up with some eggs and had it on the hapa rice. I’m pretty sure I skipped lunch, but my brain is hazy about that time of day. I feel like I must have eaten something but can’t find any evidence of it.

I had dinner just now, a bowl of raisin bran.

Jennifer texted me a link to an article while I was at the supermarket. It talked about what you need to earn hourly in order to afford a two-bedroom apartment in Hawaii. Depressing.

Crush Girl and I traded more book talk, which was nice. Sharon and I did some work talk until I felt too tired to continue.

I didn’t go for a walk because of not feeling well.

I don’t know how I feel now, but I think I feel another crash coming, and I still need to brush my teeth.

Which I think I’ll do now. No time for proofreading. I’ll fix typos later. Reach out here if you want someone to connect with in this extended lockdown.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *